GORAKHPUR, Sept 8: The death toll from an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in Uttar Pradesh rose to at least 590 on Thursday and one volunteer said a baby was dying every hour in the worst-hit district.

At least another 2,450 patients were battling for their lives in crowded insanitary hospital wards.

“The situation is very grim here in Gorakhpur. A baby is dying every hour,” J.P. Sharma, head of the non-governmental Voluntary Health Association, said.

He said the final death toll may run into the thousands as many victims have gone unreported. Nearly all those hit by the illness that erupted at the end of July in the district of Gorakhpur and spread to other areas were children.

The death toll “has risen by another 10 to 590 and 143 more children with the disease were brought to hospitals today,” said V.S. Nigam, spokesman for the Communicable Diseases Control Room in the state capital, Lucknow.

Most new deaths were reported in Gorakhpur, which has been worst hit, officials said. The illness has been reported in 25 of Uttar Pradesh’s 70 districts. In Gorakhpur’s biggest hospital, BRD Medical College, 125 critically ill children were crowded two to a bed in a ward meant for 60.

Exhausted doctors raced from one patient to another in 40 degree Celsius heat seeking to treat victims of the mosquito-borne disease. “If we had airconditoning we could save 25 per cent more lives,” said one doctor, P. Kumar, referring to a rising number of cases of dehydration in the jam-packed hospital where some 1,500 encephalitis patients were being treated.

Pigs, the original incubators of Japanese encephalitis, roamed freely inside BRD complex, sparking anger among anxious parents of ill children.

“The least they could do is to get rid of these animals,” said a visibly-angry nurse Rita who uses one name.—AFP